


Take Off Your Colours

by paperstorm



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, insecure!Michael, mentions of Ashton's self-harm, unapologetic romanticness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:09:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Michael cries quietly, for a long time, and Luke just holds him tight and rubs his back and whispers to him; pointless, nonsensical things that don’t really mean anything at all, just for something to do other than lie here helplessly with Michael in his arms. Michael’s shoulders shake and his tears drip down Luke’s shoulder, and Luke doesn’t let go, doesn’t even move, letting Michael break. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *waves* Morning loves. This was sort of inspired by a conversation with a friend about Michael still having issues with self-esteem, and sort of inspired by this video [ in which Michael is a little soft around the edges and so pretty it hurts me.](http://instagram.com/p/vc1R08kOp0/) The title is from the song of the same name by _You Me At Six._

The show at the Forum is so much fun Luke almost can’t believe it really happened. It’s one of the best nights of his entire life. This all still feels like a dream sometimes, like maybe the reality is that they’re still a garage band with nothing but hopes of making it big and at some point Luke is going to roll over and open his eyes and he’ll be back in his bed at home in Sydney. Maybe Michael will be there with him, sometimes he was, back then. That part wouldn’t be so bad. But either way, he’s always just slightly waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out none of this has been real.  
  
So far, it hasn’t, and Luke is ecstatic about it. Opening for One Direction was amazing, but he’s so excited to be playing their own shows for their own fans. The crowd at the Forum is great, their set is more fun than Luke knows what to do with, and then they’re all hugging and yelling and laughing in the dressing room after and Luke wonders if this is what being on speed or something feels like, because he’s so high he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to come back down.  
  
Back at the house later, Luke sneaks away from Calum and Ashton and finds Michael in the bathroom. He attacks him, jumping onto his back without warning. Michael stumbles a little but catches him, hooking his arms under Luke’s knees to hold him up. Luke hugs around Michael’s shoulders and kisses his cheek.  
  
“Hi,” he says, smiling at Michael in the mirror. “You were so amazing tonight. That was so much fun.”  
  
Michael smiles back, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You too.”  
  
Luke frowns. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah.” Michael lets go of Luke’s legs, and Luke slips back down to his feet. “Just a little tired.”  
  
Luke doesn’t believe him. Michael’s never been a good liar. He lets his arms fall to his sides and just watches for a minute as Michael washes his face. Then he grabs Michael’s hand and pulls him into a hug. Michael hugs back, and then Luke nudges Michael’s face with his nose, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to his lips.  
  
“Tell me what’s wrong?” he whispers.  
  
“It’s nothing, honestly,” Michael promises, and that’s a lie too.  
  
“Come back downstairs, then,” Luke tries. “We’re celebrating. We don’t wanna do it without you.”  
  
Michael shakes his head. “I think I’m just gonna go to sleep.”  
  
Luke bites at his lip ring and wants to pester Michael until he comes clean about what’s really going on. Instead he chickens out and doesn’t press the issue.  
  
“Okay. Can I, um. Can I come sleep with you? Later?” He’s never had to ask that question before, and the words feel sharp on their way out of his mouth.  
  
Michael kisses him again and squeezes Luke’s hips in his hands. “Yeah. ‘Course you can.”  
  
Luke nods and then Michael gives him a sad smile and leaves the room.  
  
Luke stays in the bathroom by himself for a few minutes, because he isn’t sure what to do. Half of him wants to chase after Michael and demand to be told what’s wrong. The other half wants to respect that Michael said he doesn’t want to talk about it. Eventually Luke makes up his mind and goes back downstairs. Ashton and Calum are spread out on the couch, and they’re laughing as Luke enters the room.  
  
“Hemmo!” Ashton yells as he walks in.  
  
“Irwie!” Luke returns.  
  
“Get in here!” Calum demands. “We’re basking in the glow of how much ass we kicked tonight.”  
  
“It was a monumental amount of ass,” Luke agrees, stepping over Calum’s outstretched legs and flopping down between him and Ashton.  
  
“Where’s Mikey?” Ashton asks, throwing an arm around Luke. He’s overheated and sweaty, but Luke likes it. Reminds him of the show.  
  
“He went to bed.”  
  
“What?” Calum cries. “We need him!”  
  
Luke shrugs. “I guess we’ll have to celebrate without him.”  
  
“Unacceptable,” Ashton pronounces. He stands up and marches toward the stairs.  
  
“Ash, don’t,” Luke says. “Leave him alone.”  
  
“I’m just gonna talk to him,” Asthon calls over his shoulder, ignoring Luke’s warning and climbing the stairs.  
  
Luke closes his eyes and swears under his breath. Michael isn’t going to appreciate that.  
  
“What did you do to him?” Calum asks.  
  
“Nothing. He’s just upset about something, he wouldn’t tell me what.”  
  
“How could he be upset after tonight? That was one of our best shows ever.”  
  
Luke shrugs again. “I thought so. I don’t know. I guess something went wrong that the rest of us didn’t notice.”  
  
Ashton’s heavy footsteps clomp down the stairs, and he walks back to the couch with a dark look on his face. “Well he’s in a shit mood,” he mutters as he sits next to Luke again.  
  
Luke groans. “Dude, I told you to leave him alone.”  
  
“Next time I’ll listen.”  
  
“Are you guys in a fight or something now?” Calum asks Ashton. “‘Cause you know we have another show in less than twenty-four hours.”  
  
Ashton shakes his head. “I asked if he was okay, he told me to go fuck myself, so I left. I’m sure we’ll be best friends again in the morning.”  
  
It doesn’t really make Luke feel better. If Michael’s snapping at people for just asking if he’s alright, something is really wrong. Luke doesn’t have any idea what it could be. Ashton and Calum slip back into chatting about the show while Luke just sits there with a frown twisting his forehead and imagines all sorts of horrible possibilities – everything from someone sending Michael a nasty message on Twitter that he’s taking personally, to someone in Michael’s family being hurt or sick or dead, even. Luke has a stomach ache, suddenly, at the idea of Michael getting some bad news after the show about his dad or something, and now he’s up there all alone and Luke should be there with him, and instead he’s down here.  
  
Calum pokes him. “What’s with you?”  
  
“What if something really bad happened?” Luke worries.  
  
“Don’t you think he would’ve told you, if it was that?”  
  
“I don’t know. He’s upset, so it has to be  _something_. Nobody gets into a bad mood over nothing at all.”  
  
“What did he say when you asked?” Ashton props his arm up on the back of the couch and turns to look at Luke.  
  
“That he was tired and that nothing was wrong. Which clearly isn’t true. Why wouldn’t he want me to know?”  
  
“Maybe he’s really just tired.”  
  
Luke doesn’t turn to Calum or Ashton very often with things relating to whatever it is he and Michael are. He tries not to, because generally their dynamic as a band works better if they all sort of pretend he and Michael  _aren’t_ doing … well. Whatever it is they’re doing. He realizes a few sentences too late that it’s exactly what he’s doing now, and then winces uncomfortably.  
  
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t be talking about this.”  
  
“It’s not like you’re asking for advice on how to suck his dick or something,” Calum muses, casually rubbing his nose like he didn’t just say that. Luke blushes. “If something bad happened to him, it’s kinda our problem too.”  
  
“I guess.” Luke wrinkles up his nose and fidgets with his hands in his lap, trying and probably failing spectacularly at hiding how uncomfortable he is.  
  
He and Michael have been  _something_  for a really, really long time. Years. Since before they even met Ashton. They were outcasts at school, both of them, and then they were outcasts together, and Luke figures that bonds you to a person in a way nothing else quite does. Michael never wanted to talk about it, back then, and Luke did at first but he decided pretty quickly that he’d rather continue having something with Michael and not talk about it than lose it by forcing labels where they didn’t belong. For years they kissed sometimes, and slept in the same bed sometimes, and then touched each other sometimes. Made each other come, in the dark in Michael’s bed when no one knew Luke had snuck in through the window. Michael used his mouth on Luke one time at a party when they were drunk, and then they did that too. They fucked for the first time in London, and added that to the list because it was fun and it felt good like everything else and it didn’t matter so much that Luke didn’t have a word to describe what they shared.  
  
Now, though, they’re in it for real. It was enough, with acting like they didn’t mean anything to each other more than an orgasm when they were stressed and needed to sleep. Luke loved him, and he was pretty sure Michael loved him back, so he was finished with pretending otherwise. Calum and Ashton were cool about it, cooler than Luke thought they’d be, but it still hasn’t become something they just discuss out in the open like anything else.  
  
“Can I say something?” Ashton says quietly, sounding hesitant – or, as hesitant as he’s capable of being, which isn’t much. Luke is constantly jealous of Ashton’s confidence.  
  
“Yes,” Calum answers, although Luke thinks Ashton was talking to him.  
  
“This whole thing we’ve got going on, where you and Michael are in love or humping or whatever it is you’re doing, and we all know but we never talk about it?” Ashton’s looking at Luke; echoing his thoughts from just a moment ago. “I hate it. It’s so stupid. You and Michael know you’re together, and we know you’re together, and you know  _we_ know you’re together, so let’s just stop acting like we don’t, alright? I can’t keep it straight anymore, what I’m allowed to say about it and what I’m not, and it’s just dumb.”  
  
“Seriously,” Calum adds. “Dude, we don’t  _care_. You know that, right? You don’t have to be freaked out about that, or like that if you talk to us about shit like this we’re gonna get all weird about it. We aren’t.”  
  
“Oh.” Luke swallows thickly and resists a heavy urge to squirm, but manages to mostly get over the slight twinge of embarrassment a moment later and is happy someone finally said it. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”  
  
“So  _go_ , then.” Ashton shoves his shoulder gently.  
  
“Go where?”  
  
“Upstairs, stupid.” Calum pushes at Luke too, so he has no choice but to stand up or be knocked to the floor. “If Michael’s having a shitty night, he shouldn’t be alone. Even if he doesn’t want to talk about it. So get up there before I do it for you.”  
  
Luke presses his lips together and nods. They’re right, and he hates that he didn’t come to that conclusion on his own. He smiles at them a little, and they both make ridiculous kissy faces at him in response, and Luke laughs as he walks away. Sometimes he’s not sure what he ever did to deserve such good friends, but he’s grateful for them all the same.  
  
Luke makes his way to and into Michael’s room quietly, in case he’s sleeping, although Luke would be willing to bet he isn’t. He strips out of his clothes, down to his underwear, and then lifts the blankets and slips into the bed. Michael doesn’t move or make a sound, but Luke still isn’t convinced he’s really asleep. He lies on his side, facing Michael’s back, and reaches out to trail his fingers lightly down Michael’s side.  
  
“Hey,” Michael whispers.  
  
Luke is relieved. He would have been really hurt if Michael had pretended to be sleeping so he didn’t have to talk. “Hi,” he whispers back. “Sorry about Ashton. I told him not to come up here.”  
  
Michael rolls over onto his back and lets his head fall over on the pillow to face Luke. He looks a little sad and a little embarrassed, and Luke aches to kiss it all away. “What else did you tell them?”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“Why I didn’t come down.”  
  
“Nothing. I just said you said you were tired.”  
  
“They didn’t believe you,” Michael concludes.  
  
“I guess not.”  
  
“Great.” Michael huffs and shakes his head a little – but he sounds more annoyed with himself than with Luke.  
  
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Luke asks gently. “I wanna know, I wanna help.”  
  
Michael closes his eyes. “I … no. I don’t. Sorry.”  
  
Luke nods. It’s not the answer he wants, but he isn’t going to make Michael talk if he really doesn’t want to. “Don’t be sorry. I’m just sad that you’re sad.”  
  
“I’ll live.”  
  
Luke frowns, and his chest feels tight. He and Michael have always been so protective of each other, since they were in school and realized they were much better as best friends than enemies, and it hurts him deep inside when he can’t fix all of Michael’s problems with a snap of his fingers. He shuffles in closer and curls into Michael’s side, sliding an arm over Michael’s waist and resting his forehead against Michael’s cheek.  
  
“I love you,” Luke murmurs, kissing Michael’s bare shoulder. He doesn’t know why he’s hoping that will help.  
  
Michael turns his face into Luke’s and presses a responding kiss to his forehead. “Me too. Let’s just sleep, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
*           *           *  
  
Luke is hopeful that when they wake up things will go back to normal, but they don’t. Michael is just … different. Not really in a way that probably most people would notice, but Luke definitely notices because he knows Michael so well. Mostly he’s just quiet. He doesn’t say much all day unless he has to. He avoids eye contact, doesn’t laugh when someone makes a joke. He turns his old self back on when he needs to, but as soon as he can he shuts right back down. He just looks lost and sad all day long and Luke spends the whole day with a burning behind his eyes and a pit in his stomach over it.  
  
Their second show at the Forum is just as awesome as the first one. Michael manages to shelve whatever is bothering him while they’re on stage, so Luke manages the same, and for an hour it seems like maybe everything will be okay. Maybe Michael was just having a bad day. It happens to Luke too, sometimes. He’ll wake up with a cramp in his neck and stub his toe on the way out of his room and suddenly everything that possibly can go wrong does go wrong until Luke falls back into bed. He figures it happens to everyone from time to time.  
  
It isn’t until later, when they’re back at home, that Luke figures out he’s wrong. He’s getting out of the shower, and he can hear muffled shouting from the floor below. He frowns, and towels off quickly so he can throw his sweat-damp clothes back on and jog downstairs with his heart pounding in his throat. They  _never_  fight, so Luke’s imagining there must be a burglar in their house or something and he’s freaked right out. What he finds when he skids into the kitchen, instead, is just Michael and Calum yelling at each other, and Ashton standing between them with a hand on each of their chests, holding them back and yelling at them to  _stop_  yelling.  
  
Luke forgets how to breathe for a moment, because this has never happened before and he doesn’t know what to do, how to react. He doesn’t even know what they’re fighting about because blood is rushing so fast behind his ears that he can’t hear actual words, just loud voices and angry faces and the sickeningly loud thumping of his own heartbeat.  
  
“Hey,” he manages to croak out eventually, far too quietly to be audible over the shouting. He tries again, louder. “Hey!”  
  
Ashton looks at him, and then so do Michael and Calum, and Luke only looks at Michael. He’s the only one Luke cares about right now, because unless Calum did something particularly unforgivable while Luke was in the shower – which is unlikely because it’s Calum – this is all an extension of whatever’s bothering Michael that he won’t talk about, and the time when it was okay for Luke to ignore that has overstayed its own welcome.  
  
“I don’t fuckin’ need this,” Calum mutters, turning and taking a few steps away like he needs a bit of distance to calm himself.  
  
“Michael,” Luke says.  
  
Michael shakes his head and his jaw clenches. He knows. He knows  _Luke_  knows what this is about, and what Luke's going to say next. “Don’t.”  
  
“Please,” Luke says softly. He walks forward, taking one of Michael’s hands and turning him away from the others, in towards Luke. He leans down and kisses the corner of Michael’s mouth, aware that they’re being watched closely by both Calum and Ashton but at the moment not caring. Michael is more important right now.  
  
“No,” Michael says, his voice cracking around the short word.  
  
“C’mon.” Luke takes his hand again, ignoring Michael’s protests. It doesn’t matter anymore, whether he wants to talk about what’s going on. He needs to, and Luke needs to make him. He pulls gently, and Michael just goes with him, either unwilling or unable to fight back.  
  
Luke takes him upstairs, to his room, and shuts the door behind them. “You wanna tell me what’s up?” he asks gently. He’s expecting Michael to keep yelling, but instead Michael just sort of … deflates. He looks away and sinks down onto the bed, tucking his hands under his thighs and staring at the floor.   
  
“That video.”  
  
“What video?”  
  
“The one Calum posted after the show last night.”  
  
Luke frowns. “What about it? We’ve done way weirder things on camera than blow-drying our junk.”  
  
Michael shakes his head a little. Luke still doesn’t understand, but Michael looks so sad, so he goes over and sits next to him, close enough that his whole side is touching Michael’s.   
  
“I’m not …” Michael sniffs, and turns his face away from Luke. “I don’t look like you guys.”  
  
Luke opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it again for a moment because he isn’t fully sure of what to say. “What do you mean? Mikey,” he adds when Michael doesn’t answer right away, reaching up and combing his fingers through Michael’s hair.   
  
“Like all ... y’know. Muscley.”  
  
“Calum and Ashton are muscley. I’m not,” Luke reminds him. “Not really.”  
  
“Yeah, but you’re skinny and your shoulders are all broad so you still look good.”  
  
“You think you don’t look good?”  
  
Michael scoffs, getting upset again. “Did you see the video? I’ve got like, fuckin’, love handles.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So? Are you serious? I don’t care about you guys so much, but I didn’t know Cal was taking a video, I wouldn’t have been walking around without my shirt if I did. This is why I don’t  _take_  my shirt off all the time like you guys do. And now that stupid video is out there for the whole fuckin’ world to see!”  
  
He gets up and walks a few steps away, and Luke sits there and blinks, dumbfounded.   
  
“We’re a band, we’ve got girls screaming all over us all the time,” Michael continues, angrily. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be the fat one? What it feels like to  _hate_ yourself?”  
  
Luke shakes his head – he doesn’t mean  _no_ , he just doesn’t know what else to say. It’s unfathomable to him that Michael feels this way, that Michael doesn’t understand how beautiful he is.   
  
“No, of course you don’t. You wouldn’t. You’re the  _heart-throb_ , the good looking one. The fucking Justin Timberlake. The one everybody wants to get with. You have no  _idea_  what it feels like to know every band has an ugly one, and it’s you.”  
  
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Luke blurts out suddenly; it’s not the most eloquent way to voice the thoughts in his head, but it’s what spills out of his mouth. “You think you’re the ugly one? What are you smoking right now? Do you have any concept of how many girls out there would start plotting to murder me  _today_  if they found out I get to be with you and they can’t?”  
  
“Because I’m in a band. Even the ugly ones have groupies. That doesn’t count.”  
  
“Of course it counts, that’s stupid.”  
  
“Oh good, now I’m stupid  _and_  ugly,” Michael mutters.  
  
“I’m not calling  _you_  stupid!” Luke protests. “And no one in their right head would ever call you ugly! You  _aren’t_!”  
  
“Lots of people do!” Michael argues. His voice is so loud and his cheeks are red because he’s upset and Luke wants to cry.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Like just people! On Twitter or whatever!”  
  
“What the hell are you doing reading that stuff? People are gonna say rude shit on the internet because they’re  _bored_ , it has nothing to do with reality! We’re getting famous, people are gonna hate on us because of it, you know that.”  
  
“It’s  _fans_!” Michael tells him. “I’m not talking about haters, it’s people who like our band! They talk about, oh, I’m a Luke girl or I’m an Ashton girl and Michael is the ugly one!”  
  
Luke can’t do anything but blink and stand there like an idiot with his mouth open. He had no idea about any of this, he tries to stay away from the things people post about them online. He doesn’t understand how people can be so cruel.  
  
“People fucking laugh about me, about how I’m like the odd one out in the band ‘cause you guys are all good-looking and I’m not!” Michael rants. “I  _know_  they’re laughing at me, I have to walk around all day every day with that information in my head. And I already fucking  _was_  the odd one out, like for my whole fucking life. I never fit in anywhere, and then I thought I finally did with you guys but I still don’t! I’m still weird, loser Michael, pretending I belong but I fucking don’t!”  
  
Luke shakes his head and helplessly mouths words that won’t come out. His heart is beating so fast again, hammering against his ribcage so quickly Michael must be able to hear it. He needs to say something –  _anything_  – but he can’t.  
  
“People would probably be thrilled if you guys replaced me or something,” Michael says. “You should, you’d probably do better.”  
  
“No,” slips out of Luke’s mouth, quietly, and then again, firmer. “ _No_. Stop. Don’t even say that. It’s not true,  _none_  of it is true.”  
  
“Yeah, it is.”  
  
“Stop!” Luke yells, way louder than he meant to. He feels like shit when Michael flinches. He crosses the room in a few quick steps and grabs Michael roughly by the arms, pulls him into a hug that feels more like a fight because Michael resists.  
  
“Hey!” Calum’s voice sounds from the hallway, followed by heavy foot steps, and then the door swings open and crashes into the opposite wall. “What the hell is going on now?”  
  
“Get  _off_  me,” Michael growls, shoving Luke away from him. Luke stumbles backward and his knee hits the corner of the bed, tripping him and sending him tumbling to the floor in a heap.  
  
“What the fuck, Michael?” Calum shouts, clearly still angry from before and now even angrier.  
  
Michael looks at Luke on the floor, and he looks sorry, but he doesn’t say so. He mumbles, “I gotta get outta here,” and pushes past Calum, and then he’s gone.  
  
“Michael!” Calum calls after him, and then a moment later the front door opens and slams shut.  
  
Tears spring to Luke’s eyes; he tries for half a second to hold them back and then gives up because it’s useless.  
  
“Shit, are you okay?” Calum asks, thinking Luke is hurt.  
  
He isn’t hurt, physically. Emotionally, he feels like he just got hit by a train.  
  
“I’m fine,” he whispers, sniffing. He moves, so his back is against the bed and he can tuck his legs up and hug around his knees. He doesn’t get off the floor. It seems pointless.  
  
Calum comes over and sits next to him. “What’s wrong with him tonight?”  
  
Luke shakes his head and doesn’t answer. He wipes at the tears on his face, angry with himself for not being able to hold them in. He’s so fucking stupid right now, sitting on the floor crying like a little kid. Calum shuffles in just a little closer and puts an arm around Luke, and it breaks down the last of Luke’s defenses. He crumbles, sadness overwhelming him, and leans into Calum, burying his face in Calum’s shoulder.  
  
“Fuck, Luke.” Calum gets both arms around him and hugs him tight.  
  
“What’s happening?” Ashton’s voice asks from the doorway.  
  
“I don’t know,” Calum answers.  
  
“Luke?” Ashton walks into the room and kneels down in front of Luke. He rubs Luke’s forearm. “What’s wrong?”  
  
A broken “I can’t,” is all Luke’s able to get out, the words muffled against the now tear-soaked material of Calum’s t-shirt.  
  
“Michael did something,” Calum says. “I don’t know what.”  
  
Luke shakes his head. He can’t have them angry with Michael when he hasn’t done anything wrong. “No, he didn’t. It isn’t his fault.”  
  
“ _What_  isn’t his fault?” Ashton presses, but Luke takes a shuddery breath and doesn’t respond, so Ashton lets it go. “Okay,” he says, softly, and then he sits on Luke’s other side and hugs him too, resting his head on Luke’s shoulder. “Okay. We’re here.”  
  
Luke blindly feels for Ashton’s hand and squeezes it, silently telling him thank you because he can’t say it out loud at the moment. He cries a little more, because Michael is gone and upset and Luke couldn’t make him feel better. Calum and Ashton stay with him and hold him, and in a way it makes Luke feel even worse, because no one’s holding Michael right now, and he’s the one that needs it the most.  
  
*           *           *  
  
Michael comes back, hours later. Luke is in his bed but he isn’t sleeping. He forced himself to stay awake, waiting to make sure Michael got home safe. Michael climbs the stairs quietly, and comes into Luke’s bedroom. He hovers near the door, maybe trying to gauge if Luke is awake.  
  
“Hey,” Luke says, not moving. He feels like his emotions just went for a fifty mile sprint, leaving him too tired to even lift his head.  
  
Michael moves into the room, and sits on the edge of the bed near Luke’s hip. He reaches out and trails his fingers over Luke’s face. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”  
  
Luke rolls onto his back to see Michael’s face, taking Michaels hand in both of his own as he does and kissing it before he lets it go. “I’m happy you’re back.”  
  
“Are you pissed at me?”  
  
“No,” Luke says honestly. “Worried about you. Sad that you feel all those things, that you don’t know none of them are true.”  
  
Michael chews on his lower lip and looks down at his hands, folded in his lap. He shrugs instead of answering.  
  
It takes an extraordinary amount of effort, but Luke sits up. He wraps his arms around Michael’s waist and hugs him sideways. “Come to bed?”  
  
“I think I … I should sleep in my own bed tonight.”  
  
“Why?” Luke asks, his voice breaking over the word and tears burning his eyes again.  
  
Michael just shrugs again.  
  
“Please don’t.” Luke is aware that he’s begging. He doesn’t care. “Please. I need you here. Okay?”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“Because I  _love_  you.” It’s so essential that Michael understands, and Luke doesn’t know how to make him. “This is where you belong. You do fit in, you belong somewhere. It’s right here, with me.”  
  
Michael nods. “Okay,” he whispers. He sounds like he’s holding back tears too; Luke can’t see for sure in the dark room.  
  
Michael gets up, pulling off his jeans and his leather jacket, leaving them in a pile on the floor. He climbs into the bed next to Luke, and doesn’t resist this time when Luke pulls him into a horizontal hug.  
  
“Don’t ever think you’re replaceable,” Luke tells him. He doesn’t know why that’s the comment that bothers him the most, but it is. “You aren’t. Not for one second. We all need you. We wouldn’t be us without you.”  
  
“Okay,” Michael says again. Luke can hear in Michael’s voice that he doesn’t believe it.  
  
*           *           *  
  
They’re killing some time in the afternoon a few days later, hanging around the house. Michael is in his room with the door closed. Calum is napping on the couch, and Luke is sitting by the pool, still stuck on trying to wrap his head around what Michael told him the other night and what he’s supposed to do about it. He wishes he could just promise Michael that he’s perfect and that would be enough, but it isn’t that simple.  
  
Luke has never known what it’s like to feel the way Michael does. He gets nervous before shows, and he wasn’t his own biggest fan when he was younger, but it isn’t the same. Being insecure for a while because he was fourteen and everyone else was insecure too isn’t the same as having those feelings last for years – having them make someone think they aren’t worthy of the person who loves them. That’s self-loathing on a whole different scale and Luke feels paralyzed by it. He has to fix it, he can’t just let Michael go on like this, but he doesn’t know how.  
  
Ashton joins him after a while, wearing a hoodie that Luke thinks might be Calum’s. He’s lost track of which items of clothing actually belong to whom. He’s wearing a pair of socks he nicked from Ashton right now.  
  
“Can you please tell me what’s up with Michael?” Ashton asks, jumping right to it. He pulls a lounge chair up next to Luke’s and sits in it.  
  
Luke presses his lips together. He doesn’t want to tell him, because it feels like betraying Michael’s confidence. He’s private with his feelings, and he’s told Luke a lot over the years that Luke knows he’d never tell anyone else. They used to lie in Michael’s bed together after school, back home, and whisper clandestine things to each other in their safe little bubble. Luke knows things about Michael that no one else in the world knows; things that Michael’s only ever spoken out loud once, while he was telling Luke. He’s is like the gate keeper of Michael’s secrets, and he takes that position seriously. He’s overwhelmed with the need to talk about this one, though, so he goes against his own instincts and does anyway.  
  
“He’s upset about that video of you two blow-drying your balls.”  
  
Ashton frowns. “Why? That was funny.”  
  
“Because he thinks he’s ugly. Or fat, or something. I don’t know.”  
  
The look on Ashton’s face perfectly echoes Luke’s own confusion. “He thinks he’s fat?” Ashton sounds like he thinks he didn’t hear correctly. Luke wishes it were the case.  
  
“Not, like,  _fat_. Just … he doesn’t like how he looks without a shirt. Or with a shirt, even. He doesn’t like … himself, I guess.”  
  
Ashton shakes his head and opens his mouth once or twice before he speaks. “I didn’t know that.”  
  
“I didn’t either. I mean, I guess I kind of did. I just didn’t know it was this bad. I didn’t know he still felt like this, you know? ‘Cause I know he used to, back at school. He used to tell me about it sometimes. But we were kids, we were both kinda outsiders. We all were. I didn’t know he was still struggling with this stuff. I didn’t know he was hiding it from me.” The words tumble out of Luke’s mouth all at once – more grateful than he realized to have someone to listen.  
  
Ashton blows out a breath. “Fuck.”  
  
“He never told me. He should have told me.” Luke says it more to himself than to Ashton. It’s been running though his head like a skipping record for days, that Michael has been going through all this alone for so long when Luke could have been carrying the burden with him. It makes him feel sick.  
  
“What are you gonna do?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Luke presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. “I told him he’s wrong but it’s not like he’s just gonna believe me. Not when he’s had these thoughts for so many years. Fuck, it’s wrecking my head, Ash. To know all these years he’s been thinking all this horrible shit about himself and keeping it all inside.”  
  
Ashton nods. “That really, really sucks.”  
  
“What do I do?” Luke asks desperately.  
  
“Make him believe you.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I really wish I did.” Ashton rolls up his sleeve and twists his arm so his palm is facing upwards, showing Luke the thin, faint scars on his wrist. “All I know is, this is what happens when you hate yourself for too long. Don’t let Michael get to this point.”  
  
Luke’s stomach lurches. He isn’t sure what’s more horrifying; the fact that Ashton used to slice into his wrists when he felt worthless, or the idea that Michael might. He forgets, sometimes, about Ashton’s past, because now Ashton is such a big, fiery ball of energy and giggles and happiness that Luke can’t get a depressed, hopeless version of him to mesh with the person he knows Ashton to be. It’s like someone trying to convince him the sky is green. It won’t gel in Luke’s head with his perception of reality.  
  
He takes Ashton’s arm in one hand and runs the fingers of his other over the scars. “Are you better now?”  
  
“Yeah. Thanks to you guys.”  
  
“What did we do?” Luke traces the pattern of the little white lines with one fingertip.  
  
“You loved me. Never expected me to be anything other than exactly what I am. Made me feel like I deserved it.”  
  
Luke nods. “We’re all kinda fucked up, aren’t we?”  
  
“Everybody’s fucked up. In their own way. We’re the lucky ones. We have each other.”  
  
That makes Luke smile just a little. He lets go of Ashton’s wrist and tosses his arm over Ashton’s shoulder, pulling him into a hug.  
  
Ashton groans and laughs. “Involuntary cuddle.”  
  
“Deal with it,” Luke says, and then adds, “I’m sorry you ever felt so bad you wanted to hurt yourself. I wish I’d known you back then. I wish we found you sooner.”  
  
“You found me exactly when I needed you to.” Ashton leans against Luke. He likes to complain about how much everyone wants to cuddle more than he actually dislikes doing it.  
  
“I’m glad we did.”  
  
“Me too. Now stop snuggling me and go upstairs. Your boy is up there feeling like he isn’t good enough, and trust me, nothing hurts worse than that. Go tell him he’s wrong.”  
  
*           *           *


	2. Chapter 2

Michael is sitting on his bed when Luke knocks and gets the green light to enter the room. He smiles at Luke, but it’s halfhearted. It doesn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes. It hasn’t in days. Michael has the most beautiful smile, usually. It lights up his whole face. Luke would do almost anything at this point to get that smile back.  
  
He joins Michael on the bed, sitting next to him. Michael shuts his laptop and leans over to set it on the floor. “What’s up?” he asks, his voice muffled from over the side of the bed, before he pushes himself back up and leans against the headboard.  
  
“Can we talk about this?”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“You know what.”  
  
Michael sighs and looks away. “Luke, I’m fine. Okay? I was having a moment. It’s over.”  
  
“You said you hate yourself,” Luke reminds him.  
  
“I was being dramatic.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s true.”  
  
“You think I’m lying?” Michael asks, an edge to his voice like he’s annoyed about being called out.  
  
“No, I think you’re embarrassed now and you’re trying to take it back.”  
  
“Why would I do that?”  
  
“I don’t know. Why are you?”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
Luke closes his eyes and tries not to cry. He gets up on the bed, tucking his legs under him to move on his knees, and then climbs onto Michael’s lap. He sits, knees bracketing Michael’s hips, and holds Michael’s face in his hands. Michael looks up at him, and Luke sees the untruths of everything Michael just said in his green eyes. He looks scared, like he knows Luke can see right through him. It makes Luke’s chest ache to think, after all these years, Michael still feels the need to hide pieces of himself from Luke.  
  
He leans forward and kisses Michael softly. “Please,” he whispers. “We have to deal with this.”  
  
“Why?” Michael mumbles, the word laced with emotion.  
  
“Because Ashton used to cut himself.”  
  
“What does that have to do with – ”  
  
“What if that happens to you?” Luke asks, edging on desperate.  
  
“It won’t.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Because it won’t.”  
  
“I can’t lose you.” Luke’s voice cracks painfully.  
  
“Now you’re being dramatic.”  
  
Luke shakes his head and runs the pad of his thumb over Michael’s red bottom lip. “Please don’t turn this into a joke. I love you. I need you to believe you deserve that.”  
  
Michael closes his eyes and tenses up and doesn’t answer. It’s worse, than if he’d said something, because it just leaves Luke’s over-active imagination to supply all kinds of horrible things that might be running through Michael’s head right now – things he isn’t strong enough to say out loud.  
  
“C’mere.” Luke stands up and holds out his hand.  
  
Michael eyes him warily. “Where?”  
  
“I wanna show you something.”  
  
Michael still looks uncertain, but he takes Luke’s hand anyway. Luke leads him to the bathroom. He closes the door, and turns Michael around so he’s facing the full length mirror on the back of it.  
  
Michael frowns. “What are we doing?”  
  
Luke moves in behind Michael’s back. He slips his hands under Michael’s shirt, cupping his hips, squeezing. He makes eye contact with Michael in the mirror.  
  
“Take it off,” he says, half a question and half not, as he plays with the hem of Michael’s shirt to illustrate his meaning.  
  
For a moment, Michael looks confused. Then he looks at where Luke is touching his shirt, and gets it. His mouth opens just slightly and his cheeks flush, and he shakes his head.  
  
“Why?” he asks. “You know what I look like.”  
  
“Yeah, I do. But you don’t know what I know you look like.”  
  
“That doesn’t make sense.”  
  
“Just do it.”  
  
Michael blinks, his eyes going shiny, and sounds wrecked when he says, “Luke.”  
  
Luke hates himself for making Michael so upset, he never ever wants to be the reason Michael looks the way he does right now. But he needs to do this. Michael needs it. He needs to know.  
  
“Please?” he murmurs. He nudges the side of Michael’s face with his nose and then kisses his cheek. “Do this for me. Trust me, okay?”  
  
It looks like it takes every ounce of strength Michael has not to cry, but he does it. He grabs his shirt by the hem and pulls it up over his head, lets it fall down to the ground beside his feet. Luke looks at him through the mirror, and Michael won’t look back. He stares resolutely off to one side, blinking a little quicker than normal. Luke is so painfully aware of how much trust it’s taking for Michael to just go with this, to let Luke hold him up and believe Luke won’t let him fall. It feels like holding a life in his hands.  
  
“Look,” Luke requests softly.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Please?” Luke whispers again.  
  
Reluctantly, Michael does. His eyes are still shiny and his cheeks still pink, and there’s so much shame and embarrassment on his face that Luke wants to cry too.  
  
“Look at you.” Luke runs his hands everywhere; across Michael’s stomach, up his middle, over his chest, down his ribcage. Finally they settle back on Michael’s hips, on the softer curves of flesh that Michael finds so offensive. “There isn’t one inch of you that isn’t sexy.”  
  
Michael shakes his head and looks away again, his jaw setting like he’s angry. All in all, he probably managed to stare at his own shirtless body in the mirror for less than a minute, and it makes Luke’s chest ache to think about what that means. He knew Michael was a little insecure – he’s always known that. It’s why Michael is the way he is; why he’s loud and goofy and rebellious. It’s a front, a cover for the sensitive soul underneath. Luke’s always sort of loved that about Michael. He just had no idea it was causing him this much pain.  
  
“You must have low standards.”  
  
“I have the highest possible standards,” Luke argues softly. “The only person in the world who’s good enough for me is you.”  
  
Michael huffs a breath like he doesn’t believe it.  
  
Luke goes a step further, fumbling in the darkness for something,  _anything_ , that will make Michael understand. He undoes the button and zipper on Michael’s jeans and pushes them down over Michael’s hips and thighs – Michael just steps out of them without argument like he’s lost the will to care. If Luke’s heart wasn’t already broken enough, it is now.  
  
“Tell me to stop,” he whispers, but Michael doesn’t, so Luke doesn’t either.  
  
He slides his fingers down Michael’s chest, keeping his eyes locked on Michael’s in the mirror. Michael is watching him apprehensively, unsure of what Luke is going to do next but still trusting him. Luke moves his right hand lower, until he can reach below Michael’s waist and touch him, soft and warm, through the thin material of his boxers. Michael’s breath hitches almost imperceptibly and his eyes widen for just a moment. Luke kisses the side of his face and squeezes gently around his handful.  
  
Michael presses his lips together, blinking a few times and not dropping his gaze. Luke can feel the heat between them in the way they’re looking at each other, just as palpable as if the pathway between their eyes wasn’t broken by the reflection in the mirror. He mouths at Michael’s neck as he rubs Michael’s hardening cock through his underwear, slipping his hand inside them eventually and curling his fingers around the stiff flesh. Michael breathes just a little quicker, and his lips part slightly, but otherwise he stands stone-still and Luke needs him to feel better again so much it just hurts all over.  
  
He hooks his fingers under the elastic waistband of Michael’s boxers and gets them off too, staring blatantly up and down Michael’s fully naked body in the mirror; thin except for slight softness and pale, smooth skin and so perfect Luke can’t comprehend why there’s a single thing Michael doesn’t like about himself.  
  
“Look how beautiful you are,” Luke murmurs, in awe of how much he means it. Michael is breath-taking; he’s always thought so, from the moment they met. Even when they hated each other, Luke was always jealous of the way Michael looked. Of his cool hair and his glowy complexion and his sparkly smile. He hardly ever says it, either, which clearly has been a mistake. Luke never realized how much Michael needs to hear it.  
  
He lifts his eyes up from Michael’s body, gaze raking over Michael’s just-barely heaving chest, and looks at his face. He’s turned away from the mirror, his chin practically pressing into his shoulder in an effort to face away from his own reflection; his eyes squeezed shut so tight the skin around them is crinkled. Luke’s stomach turns. Instantly he feels terrible. This was supposed to make Michael feel better, not worse. It didn’t work. And Michael  _trusted_  him. He didn’t want to do this, but he did it anyway for Luke.  
  
Suddenly Luke thinks he’s about to cry, or throw up, or maybe both.  
  
“Michael,” he whispers.  
  
Michael just shakes his head.  
  
Luke lets Michael’s cock fall out of his hand. He puts his fingers back on Michael’s hips and turns him, away from the mirror. Michael goes willingly, letting Luke him fold him into his arms. He leans into Luke’s chest, wrapping his arms around Luke’s waist and pushing his face into Luke’s neck.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Luke murmurs, hugging him tight and blinking back tears. He feels like the worst person in the world. “Fuck. I … I was trying to help, I didn’t know it was this bad. I’m so sorry, Mikey.”  
  
Again, Michael doesn’t answer. He squeezes around Luke’s back, though, so Luke knows Michael isn’t angry at him. Just upset. And really, that’s worse. If Michael was pissed off, they could yell at each other for a while, and then apologize, and kiss and hug and they’d be under the sheets in no time and everything would be okay again. This, Luke doesn’t know how to fix. He doesn’t understand why Michael feels the way he does, and he doesn’t know how to make it go away.  
  
Something warm and wet soaks through the fabric of Luke’s shirt, and he belatedly realizes Michael is crying. That makes tears spring to Luke’s eyes too. He holds Michael’s face and kisses him, desperate to make the sadness go away.  
  
“I can fix this, okay?” he mumbles. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, just let me fix it.”  
  
Michael shakes his head. “It isn’t your fault.”  
  
Luke is grasping at straws for what to do anyway. He lets go of Michael, just this second realizing Michael is completely naked and Luke still has all his clothes on, and stripping quickly out of them. Then he puts his hands back on Michael’s hips and kisses the corner of his mouth. It tastes like salt from his tears. “There. Now it’s me too, alright?”  
  
Michael nods and sighs shakily, sliding his fingers into Luke’s hair.  
  
Luke hugs him again, wrapping his arms around Michael’s waist and hunching over so he can bury his face in Michael’s neck. “I love you, so much,” he whispers against Michael’s skin. “Every bit of you is so beautiful to me. I don’t know how to make you believe that, but I swear I mean it.”  
  
“Don’t,” Michael mumbles.  
  
“Don’t what?” Luke asks, terrified of the answer, and his worst fears are confirmed when Michael says, “Love me.”  
  
Luke shakes his head. “You don’t get a say in that,” he rasps, upset and scared and crying a little bit himself now. “You don’t have to love me back, if you don’t want. But there’s nothing you can say to make me stop.”  
  
“I’ll ruin you.”  
  
“ _No_.” Luke brings his hands up to cup Michael’s face so he can kiss him frantically. “No you won’t. You make me better.”  
  
“I do?” Michael’s voice is small, broken; like he hopes it’s the truth but doesn’t want to risk believing it.  
  
“Yes. God, yes. I am a better person every day because I love you. I’m so stupid for not telling you that every single day.”  
  
Michael shakes his head again, and Luke finally manages to let go of Michael long enough to him back to the bed, flicking off the lights when they pass the switch and then nudging Michael back onto the mattress. He scrambles in after him, tugging the blankets up over them both and pulling Michael into his arms again. Any second spent without Michael pressed against his chest right now is a million years too long.  
  
Michael cries quietly, for a long time, and Luke just holds him tight and rubs his back and whispers to him; pointless, nonsensical things that don’t really mean anything at all, just for something to do other than lie here helplessly with Michael in his arms. Michael’s shoulders shake and his tears drip down Luke’s shoulder, and Luke doesn’t let go, doesn’t even move, letting Michael break until finally the sobs slow and Luke starts to feel just a little like he can breathe properly again. They exist in silence for another few minutes, half because Luke doesn’t know what to say and half because it feels like maybe for a while the right thing to say is nothing.  
  
“Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?” Luke asks eventually, internally praying the answer will be no.  
  
“Not seriously. It’s not …” Michael sighs, sounding exhausted. “I’m okay, most of the time. There’s just all this stuff in my head, and most of it is from a long time ago, but it all creeps back sometimes. I don’t look at myself in the mirror that much. I try not to. So then I saw that video and it was like, fuck, is that really what I look like? And knowing everyone is gonna see it and they’ll all be comparing me to fucking Ashton and his stupid perfect body, and – ”  
  
“ _You_  are perfect,” Luke interrupts. He squeezes his arms around Michael. “I hate that you don’t know that. But I promise you, everything bad that you think about yourself, you’re the only one who thinks it. There are thousands of fans out there who have pictures of you on their walls and fast-forward through our songs to get to the part where you sing and doodle Mrs. Clifford on their notebooks. You are loved, Michael. By everyone who meets you, and a million people who haven’t.”  
  
Michael exhales shakily and doesn’t answer. Maybe he can’t. When Luke has ever been really upset about something, sometimes it’s hard to get the words out.  
  
“Calum and Ashton love you like a brother. That’s forever. It never goes away. And me too. I love you like … well. Not at all like a brother,” Luke says, with a small smile.  
  
Michael laughs a little, and it makes the vice grip around Luke’s heart loosen just a little. “That would be weird.”  
  
“And illegal, probably.”   
  
Luke’s phone buzzes twice from the nightstand.  
  
“You wanna answer it?” Michael asks.  
  
Luke shakes his head. “It can wait.”  
  
“It could be important.”  
  
“Not more important than you,” Luke tells him, kissing his forehead.  
  
Michael laughs again. “Answer your damn phone, Romeo.”  
  
Luke sort of doesn’t want to, but he reaches for it anyway. It’s a text from Ashton.  
  
 _Hows it goin?_  
  
 _Hard. But good I think_ , Luke answers. It doesn’t quite feel true, but Luke sort of figures maybe this is the sort of situation where Michael needs to get worse for a while before he can get better. So maybe him being broken, for tonight, is alright.  
  
 _Is he ok?_  
  
 _Getting there. We’re cuddling._  
  
 _Aw. Good,_ Ashton sends, with six or seven heart-eyes emojis that make Luke smile.  
  
 _Naked_ , he adds, just to be a dick about it, and Ashton predictably responds,  _ewwwwwwwwwwww._  
  
“Who is it?” Michael asks.  
  
“Ashton.”  
  
“Do they need us for something?”  
  
“No. He just … wants to know if you’re okay.” Luke still feels guilty for telling Ashton about Michael’s secret. He really shouldn’t have. It wasn’t his secret to tell.  
  
“So, they know, then. About … me,” Michael says slowly.  
  
“M’sorry,” he murmurs. “I had to tell them, Mikey, they were worried about you. I won’t tell them anything else, okay? I swear. Everything you’ve said to me tonight stays between us.”  
  
“They were worried?”  
  
“Of course they were. They care about you.”  
  
Michael nods.  
  
“Are you mad that they know?”  
  
“No. I’m … embarrassed, a little, I guess. Not mad.”  
  
His phone buzzes again in his hand, and Luke slides the screen unlocked with his thumb.

 _Cal and I are gonna fuck off for a while. Make him feel better. And dont feel the need to tell me about it later :)_  
  
Luke answers,  _thanks_ , and then powers his phone off and puts it back on the table. He gets his arm back around Michael and nuzzles into his hair. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s not just you, you know. Everybody has things they don’t like about themselves, things they think everyone else is judging.”  
  
“Tell me one of yours.”  
  
“My skin,” Luke says immediately. “You guys all have such perfect skin. Especially you, you practically glow. And they always have to photoshop my face or plaster me in makeup to make me look good enough for the cameras, and I always think when people see me in person they must think it’s so gross.”  
  
Michael pushes up onto one elbow and frowns down at Luke. “No one thinks it’s gross. You’re eighteen and you basically sweat for a living, being on stage all the time. Of course your skin is gonna show that.”  
  
Luke reaches up and slides his fingers over Michael’s cheek. “So how come everyone’s flaws get a pass but yours?”  
  
Michael stares at him for a moment, and then his face falls. Luke sees how hard that hits him – he didn’t mean for it to be such a punch to the gut and he feels awful about it. He also feels like maybe, even if it hurts, Michael needed to hear that. To understand how badly he’s treating himself. Michael rolls onto his back and covers his face with his hands, and Luke chases after him, curling into his side and wrestling his arms back around Michael’s shaking body.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “It’s just so unfair, that other people get to have imperfections but you don’t.”  
  
Michael shakes his head. “I don’t know how to think differently,” he admits, his voice shaking too.  
  
“Maybe you should talk to someone.”  
  
“Like what, a therapist?” Michael asks defensively. “I’m not that kind of crazy.”  
  
“I’m not saying you’re crazy. Michael, it’s okay to need help.”  
  
“I’m not spilling my guts out for some stranger with a clipboard. I can barely handle telling  _you_.”  
  
“What about Ashton?” Luke tries. “He knows what this feels like, he knows how he got out of it.”  
  
“He wouldn’t want to talk to me.”  
  
Luke frowns. He’s the one to push up onto one elbow now, so his face is just above Michael’s. He gently moves Michael’s hands away, and looks down into his sad, scared green eyes. “Yes he would,” Luke promises. He doesn’t even have to ask Ashton to know it’s the truth. He cups Michael’s cheek in his hand and kisses the spot between his eyebrows.  
  
“What if he laughs at me?”  
  
“ _No one_ would laugh at you over this. No decent person, anyway. And especially not Ashton. He’s been through this, Michael. He used to cut because of how badly he felt about himself. He would understand.”  
  
Michael presses his lips together and nods a little.  
  
“We all love you, whether or not you think you deserve it. Anyone in the band would be thrilled if we could help you feel better about yourself.”  
  
Michael closes his eyes and tears drip off his eyelashes, running in jagged patterns down his cheeks. Luke blinks back the tears in his own eyes and wipes the wetness off Michael’s face with gentle fingertips. Then he kisses Michael’s closed eyelids, one at a time.  
  
“I wish I could see what you see when you look in the mirror, just for like five minutes, so I could understand why you think all these things about yourself,” he murmurs. “Then I wish I could make you see what I do when I look at you. And I wish I could make you see it forever. Because to me, you’re perfect.”  
  
Fresh tears spill from Michael’s closed eyes and he shakes his head again, helplessly, and Luke decides he’s had enough for one day. He knows Michael needs to hear all the things he’s saying, and also how much they hurt to hear. For now, he’ll let it go. He wants to help, not break Michael so completely he’ll never recover.  
  
“Okay,” he says softly, bumping Michael’s nose with his own. “I won’t say anything else tonight.”  
  
Michael wraps his arms around Luke’s neck and whispers, “Don’t go.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” Luke promises. It makes his chest ache that Michael thinks he would – thinks there’s even a possibility Luke would leave him alone right now. “Ever.”  
  
Michael nods. “Kiss me, okay?”  
  
“You never have to ask,” Luke says, and then slides his lips over Michael’s. He deepens it instantly, licking along Michael’s bottom lip and dipping his tongue inside when Michael parts them.  
  
Michael’s tongue is mellow and warm and it moves slowly around Luke’s. He loves kissing Michael all ways, but especially like this, deep and thorough and passionate. He gets lost in it, lost in the feel of Michael underneath him and the taste of his mouth, somehow both exactly the same as the first time they ever did this when they were young and scared. Years have passed and so many things have changed, but not everything.  
  
He moves his hips slowly against Michael’s, the flush of blood warming him inside, his cock hardening as it rubs between their stomachs with Michael’s next to it. Luke loves how this feels, knowing Michael wants him. Every now and then Luke spends a minute back in his 14-year-old self, thinking Michael was so cool and tall and way too good to ever like Luke back. He almost can’t believe it even now, sometimes, that Michael wants this with him.  
  
Luke takes his time, because he wants to kiss every inch of Michael, every piece of him that he doesn’t like about himself. He wants to rebrand them, make them beautiful. He kisses up the underside of Michael’s arms, down his neck, over his collarbone, down his chest and then back up to his lips. He reaches between them while he swirls his tongue around Michael’s again, curling his fingers around Michael’s erection and squeezing, stroking slowly.  
  
Michael sighs, sounding happy, and it’s like music to Luke’s ears. He bumps his nose against Michaels and smiles when Michael slides his fingers through Luke’s hair.  
  
“What d’you wanna do?” Luke asks softly.  
  
“Anything.”  
  
Luke shakes his head. “You have to choose.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I want you to be happy.”  
  
Michael sighs again, and this time it’s laced with emotion, but he nods. “Fuck me?” he asks, in a small voice.  
  
“If that’s what you want.”  
  
“Yeah. Wanna …” He trails off and lets his head fall to one side.  
  
Luke nudges his cheek and kisses it. “Tell me.”  
  
“I wanna feel like … I’m yours,” Michael whispers.  
  
Luke closes his eyes and tries not to gasp audibly over the punch Michael’s words pack. “You are. Always.”  
  
“Show me?”  
  
Luke kisses him one more time, and then gets up briefly to get what they need. He crawls back into the bed with Michael, settling between his legs, loving the way they spread to make room for him. He bends over and kisses Michael’s hips as he spreads lube over his fingers, dragging his teeth gently over the jut of bone and the curve that Michael hates. Michael’s fingers pulling gently in Luke’s hair say without words that he knows what Luke’s doing. Luke just hopes it’s working this time.  
  
He presses one finger at a time into Michael’s body, slowly because Michael doesn’t do this as often as Luke does and the last thing Luke wants to do tonight is hurt him. Michael moans when the tips of Luke’s fingers brush his prostate, and arousal swells in Luke’s gut. He loves the sounds Michael makes when he doesn’t hold back. He moves, rising to his knees and bracing his hand next to Michael’s shoulder so he can kiss him again, while he moves three fingers in and out of Michael’s body until his muscles start to give.  
  
“Are you okay?” Luke asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Michael breathes, his eyes closed. “Feels good, babe.”  
  
“I love it when you call me that,” Luke tells him.  
  
“You do?”  
  
“‘Cause you’re the only one who does. You called me that even before we were together. That word means you, to me.”  
  
Michael’s face breaks into a smile and he shakes his head. “You are so dorky.”  
  
Luke laughs. “Thanks.”  
  
“I love you, though.”  
  
“Even though I’m a dork.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
He pulls his fingers out of Michael and reaches for the lube again, slicking up his cock and chewing the inside of his cheek because his own hand feels better than it should and he wants it to be drawn out tonight. They’ve been too busy to do it this way lately, and Luke thinks they both need it.  
  
“D’you, um, wanna turn over?”  
  
Michael bites at his bottom lip and shakes his head. “Wanna see you.”  
  
Luke nods. That’s how he wants it too. It’s too impersonal any other way. He slides his hand up Michael’s thigh, the soft hairs tickling his palm, and guides his leg up. Michael hooks an ankle over the small of Luke’s back and reaches for him, so Luke leans over and kisses him while he presses the tip of his cock up against Michael body and pushes slowly inside. Michael’s breath hitches, so Luke goes painstakingly slow, working himself into Michael with small, shallow rocks of his hips. Michael clings to him so Luke clings back, pushing his face into Michael’s neck and mouthing at his skin. By the time his hips hit Michael’s ass his chest is heaving, winded with the effort of holding back and spun out of control with how good it feels, how warm and tight Michael is around him, the way Michael’s hands on the back of his neck keep him grounded.  
  
“Luke,” Michael is saying softly. “Luke.”  
  
“Right here, Mikey,” Luke murmurs. “I got you.”  
  
“You gotta move, I can’t …”  
  
“Yeah. Okay.”  
  
Luke gets a rhythm going, slow and deliberate and even. Michael holds onto him so tightly, like he’s afraid if he doesn’t Luke might disappear. Like there’s any place on the planet Luke would rather be right now than here with Michael. He tries to break Michael apart with every slow, poignant thrust, and hold the shattered pieces together in his arms when Michael can’t hold himself together anymore.  
  
“Touch me,” Michael rasps breathlessly.  
  
Luke kisses him messily and balances his own weight on one elbow so he can shove an arm between them, stroking Michael’s hard, leaking cock in time with the unhurried rolls of his hips. The angle isn’t perfect but Luke doesn’t stop, and it could be anywhere between five minutes and a week, Luke doesn’t know, so lost in the way they move together, in Michael’s hands on his back, blunt nails digging into his skin, the soft, broken sounds Michael makes. Luke feels a moan reverberate between them and can’t tell who it came from – maybe it was both of them. He’s so close to Michael like this, tangled physically and interwoven emotionally and there’s no way Luke could ever crawl out of it. He doesn’t want to, either.  
  
It lasts for ages and it still feels too soon when Luke starts to feel fluttering deep in his gut. It always feels too soon. Sometimes Luke wishes he could rewrite the rules so he could live in a world where he didn’t need sleep or food or water to survive and he could stay like this with Michael forever.  
  
Michael clenches around Luke’s cock and moans again, quiet and stuttered; and he’s close too, Luke can tell because he knows Michael so well now, knows every noise and reaction and what they mean.  
  
“I want you to come first,” Luke says, his voice coming out strained. In a weird way, he almost doesn’t want to come himself at all. He wants this to be completely about Michael, making him feel good, feel loved.  
  
“Yeah. Okay.” Michael brings his hands up and wraps them around the back of Luke’s neck again, squeezing.  
  
Luke twists his wrist, his closed fist sliding around the slippery head of Michael’s cock.  
  
“Almost,” Michael whispers.  
  
Luke shifts his hips around until he finds the spot deep inside that makes Michael shudder and hits it, three or four times in a row just to push Michael over that edge. Michael’s mouth falls open and something that maybe was supposed to be Luke’s name falls out and he shivers, tensing and relaxing and spilling hot and slippery over Luke’s fingers. He’s so breathtaking like this, lost in pleasure, the muscles inside rippling around Luke’s cock, and Luke loses it too. White-hot and electric crashes through Luke, flying down the lines of his nerve endings and over-taking him. He pants into Michael’s neck when it’s over, stuck somewhere up in the clouds in his own lifeless body, unable to move and unwilling to try. Michael hugs him tight again, and Luke doesn’t know how he’s doing it because his own limbs won’t move at all, let alone summon the strength to squeeze something, so he nuzzles into Michael’s skin instead.  
  
Michael nudges Luke’s face with his own, and Luke manages to lift his head enough to slide their lips together lazily. When he can move, he kisses down Michael’s jaw and neck and chest again, pressing his lips to every spot he can reach, needing to taste Michael’s skin with sweat he put there. He licks at the come on Michael’s stomach, the bitter flavor of it lingering on his tongue like a semi-permanent tattoo of what they’ve done. Michael runs his fingers through Luke’s hair and watches him, a small whimper escaping from the back of his throat. Then Luke sits up and stares down at Michael’s pale body, chest dusted with dots of sweat, stomach shiny where Luke left DNA on his skin. He’s utter perfection, in an exquisitely imperfect way, and if he still doesn’t believe that, Luke’s going to work night and day until he does.  
  
“What are you doing?” Michael asks.  
  
“Looking at you.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Taking a mental picture for the spank bank.” Luke smiles at him.  
  
Michael laughs a little, adorably embarrassed, and looks away. “Shut up.”  
  
Luke leans down and presses one last kiss to Michael’s hip, and then he crawls back up, hovering over Michael and kissing his lips. “No. I’m never gonna shut up. Never gonna stop telling you how beautiful you are.”  
  
Michael answers with closed eyes and a sigh that shakes with emotion. He presses his lips together and then he nods a little, and whispers, “Okay.”  
  
Luke aches suddenly with the need to wrap Michael up, to protect him from whatever’s still going on inside his own mind. He wants to take that negative voice in Michael’s head, the one that says he isn’t good enough, and cut it into a million pieces.  
  
He tugs the blankets up over them. He pulls Michael in close, and Michael goes, let’s himself be cuddled. Luke holds him tight and rests his mouth against the top of Michael’s hear, breathing in the smell of his hair.  
  
“Next time you feel like you did tonight, I want you to tell me, okay?” Luke requests. “Tell me what you’re thinking, so I can tell you all the reasons you’re wrong. Until you believe me.”  
  
Michael nods, and his hair tickles Luke’s nose. “Okay,” he says again.  
  
“You believe I love you, right?”  
  
“Yeah. I know you do.”  
  
“So much. I can’t even tell you how much.”  
  
“Stop,” Michael complains, both joking and not.  
  
Luke chuckles. “Nope. Sorry. Not gonna.”  
  
Michael sighs, and laughs, and pokes Luke in the ribs. “Such a sap.”  
  
“Says the biggest romantic I know,” Luke teases. “You love it. Underneath all the punk.”  
  
“Don’t tell anymore.”  
  
“Our secret.” Luke kisses Michael’s hair, and then ducks his head down a little to kiss the piercing in Michael’s eyebrow. He whispers, his lips dragging against it, “This is so sexy.”  
  
Michael reaches up and taps a finger over Luke’s lip ring. “So is this.”  
  
“So are these,” Luke adds, catching Michael’s arm to touch where the smooth, pale expanse of his skin is interrupted with jet black rings.  
  
“We gotta get you inked.”  
  
Luke wrinkles his nose. “I’m a wimp.”  
  
“I’d go with you. You could squeeze my hand.”  
  
Luke trails his fingers over the bands, pausing on the thicker, solid one. “Did this one hurt a lot?”  
  
“Yeah. The others didn’t as much.”  
  
“You’re so much braver than me.”  
  
“You get up on stage and sing in front of thousands of people.”  
  
“So do you,” Luke points out.  
  
“And I have tattoos. Your move, Hemmings.”  
  
“Would you still love me if I got Calum’s face done on my butt?”  
  
“Probably not.”  
  
Luke laughs, and then doesn’t say anything else for a few minutes. Michael settles in his arms, slipping one of his own over Luke’s waist. It’s quiet and comfortable, Luke feels warm and safe when he’s wrapped up with Michael. Then Michael giggles unexpectedly.  
  
“What?” Luke asks, smiling.  
  
“I’m imagining fucking you from behind and having Calum’s face staring at me off your ass.”  
  
Luke giggles too. “That would be awkward.”  
  
“I’m never gonna get that image out of my head.”  
  
“If you moan Calum’s name in your sleep tonight I’m leaving you,” Luke jokes.  
  
“No you won’t,” Michael argues, his laughter subsiding on a yawn as he snuggles in a little closer like the human teddy bear he denies being.  
  
“No, I won’t,” Luke agrees. “You’re stuck with me for life.”  
  
“You think we’re gonna last that long?”  
  
“You got other plans?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Luke cards his fingers through Michael’s soft, tomato-red hair. “I don’t want anybody else. Ever. You’re my … I don’t know. Whatever. You’re my person.”  
  
Michael hums and tries to play it off, but Luke hears the emotion in his voice when he murmurs, “You’re my person too.”  
  
*           *           *  
  
Luke wakes up first the next morning, with Michael’s body plastered against his side, an arm over Luke’s middle, his skin soft and sleep-warm. Luke smiles to himself and kisses Michael’s forehead, lying with him for a while and listening to the slow, steady sound of him breathing. He puts off getting up to pee for as long as possible because he wants to stay here with Michael, but eventually he can’t anymore, and he reluctantly extracts himself from under Michael’s heavy arm. He finds a scrap of paper and a pen in Michael’s bag, and scribbles a note –  _I’m downstairs. Come find me. Love you. –_  to leave on his now vacant pillow, so Michael won’t feel quite so alone when he wakes up.  
  
He finds Ashton by himself in the kitchen, perched on a stool at the island, eating cereal. Luke smiles at him to say hello, and then reaches into his bowl and steals a marshmallow shaped like a rainbow.  
  
“Dude, get your own!” Ashton complains with a sparkly laugh.  
  
“Lucky Charms taste better when they’re stolen,” Luke informs him.  
  
Ashton shakes his head, his eyes crinkled in a smile. “Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with you.”  
  
“Because I’m pretty.”  
  
“Not pretty enough, some days.”  
  
“Wow,” Luke says loudly, smacking Ashton playfully as he giggles again. “That’s just rude.”  
  
“How’s Michael?”  
  
“A bit better, I think. Still not great, probably.”  
  
“It won’t happen overnight. It didn’t for me.”  
  
Luke nods. “Could … would you talk to him? If he wants? I don’t know how to help him with this, I don’t know what he’s going through. You do.”  
  
“‘Course,” Ashton says, brushing it off like Luke shouldn’t have thought he even had to ask.  
  
“Thanks. Thank you.”  
  
Ashton shrugs like it’s nothing. “We’re a band. If we can’t help each other through things we’re not doing it right.”  
  
“What aren’t we doing right?” Calum asks, entering the room and going straight for the coffee machine.  
  
“Helping Michael,” Ashton answers.  
  
“How is he?” Calum says to Luke.  
  
Belatedly, it occurs to Luke that he never actually told Calum about what was going on; only Ashton, when they spoke by the pool yesterday. But Calum doesn’t seem confused, so Ashton must have filled him in. “A little broken, right now.”  
  
“So we’ll put him back together, then,” Calum says, as if it’s that easy, and Luke really hopes it will be.  
  
He accepts the cup of coffee Calum hands him and then pours himself a bowl of cereal, and chats about nothing with his bandmates for a while until Michael wakes up. He does, maybe a half hour later, coming down the stairs and walking into the kitchen in boxers and a long sleeved t-shirt that definitely belongs to Luke because the sleeves are too long on Michael, covering his hands. They all look at him when he steps into the room, and Michael immediately rolls his eyes.  
  
“Well that doesn’t make me feel as if you were all just talking about me or anything,” he grumbles, only half serious in his annoyance.  
  
Luke smiles and goes to him, pulling Michael into a good-morning kiss and genuinely not caring anymore that Calum and Ashton can see. “How’d you sleep?”  
  
“Good.” Michael wraps his arms around Luke’s neck, and adds, “We’re doin’ this in front of them now?”  
  
“Is that okay?”  
  
“With me, it is. What about them?”  
  
“ _Them_  love you both and aren’t such homophobic pricks that they’d lose their minds if they saw you kiss every now and then,” Calum pipes up dryly.  
  
Michael laughs a little. “You’re gonna regret those words, Hood,” he warns, not breaking eye-contact with Luke.  
  
Luke smiles and kisses him again, while Calum jokes about a conversation they’ll need to have if Luke and Michael start fucking each other on the kitchen table in the middle of the day.  
  
*           *           *  
  
Later, Luke asks Calum to go in the hot tub with him so Michael and Ashton can talk. He doesn’t say the second part out loud, but a pointed look from Ashton says he knows what Luke’s intention was.  
  
“What did you do with Michael last night?” Calum asks, leaning back against the plastic wall of the tub and rubbing wet hands over his hair.  
  
Luke raises an eyebrow at him and Calum laughs.  
  
“Not  _that_. Like, about his whole thing.”  
  
“We just talked, mostly. He told me some shitty things he thinks about himself. I told him they weren’t true.”  
  
“Is it bad? What he thinks?”  
  
Luke nods. “Some of it. So, I don’t know. Not sure I really helped all that much. I just hugged him a lot, tried to make sure he knows I love him. And that you guys do too.”  
  
“And then sex,” Calum jokes.  
  
Luke blushes and looks away. He’s smiling, but he’s not quite used to this yet. “Yeah.”  
  
Calum laughs too. “I’m a little jealous.”  
  
“You wanna fuck Michael?”  
  
“No.” Calum splashes him. “You’re getting laid and I’m not.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“You should be.” Calum sticks his tongue out at Luke to convey he isn’t serious.  
  
They soak in the warm water until Luke’s fingers go pruney, and even then he’s reluctant to go back inside because he doesn’t want to interrupt. They do anyway, and Michael and Ashton are on the couch. Ashton has his arm around Michael, and Michael’s head is on Ashton’s shoulder. He looks small and fragile and it breaks Luke’s heart all over again. They don’t notice at first, when Luke and Calum come in, and Luke feels awkward about it for a moment because if Ashton is helping Michael in some way he doesn’t want to break the spell. But Calum nudges his shoulder and nods in the direction of their bandmates, and Luke is grateful to have someone make the decision for him.  
  
He wipes at his wet shorts with a towel so he won’t drip too much on the floor and then goes over to them. Ashton waves him closer when he spots Luke, gesturing for Luke to join them. Luke does, sitting next to Michael, and he’s gonna get the couch and probably Michael’s pants wet with chemical-scented water but he doesn’t really care too much.  
  
“Hey,” he says, reaching out to touch Michael’s cheek. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Michael says shakily. He sounds like he wishes it were true more than it actually is, but Luke sees positives in the fact that Michael was willing to talk to Ashton at all.  
  
“We had a good cry together,” Ashton says. He’s smiling at Luke, but Luke can also tell he isn’t kidding about that. The faint, leftover stains of tears are still on Ashton’s face, and his already thick accent is a little stronger than usual. He mouths  _thank you_  to Ashton over the top of Michael head, and Ashton shakes his head, downplaying the importance of what he did, and Luke is never going to stop thanking him because Ashton clearly doesn’t understand how vital it is. Ashton rests his chin on the top of Michael’s head and gives him an extra squeeze, and then nudges him and says, “I think your boyfriend wants a turn.”  
  
Michael goes willingly, sitting up briefly and letting Ashton transfer his body to Luke. Luke holds him tight and kisses his hair, and Michael relaxes again, leaning against Luke now. He fits so perfectly in this spot, like he was designed to be in Luke’s arms.  
  
“Bet this isn’t how anyone wanted to spend today,” Michael mumbles, self-deprecating as always – still ashamed of himself, and it makes Luke’s chest hurt.  
  
“Helping you? Telling you we love you? Yeah, why would we ever wanna do that,” Ashton answers, smiling and sarcastic. He hugs Michael from the other side, switching positions from before and resting his head on Michael’s shoulder now.  
  
Calum joins them, sitting next to Luke and getting his arms around both Luke and Michael. “We love you, Michael,” he says, in a loud, silly voice.  
  
Michael laughs a little. “Shut up.”  
  
“Make us,” Ashton challenges.  
  
Michael doesn’t. He turns his face into Luke’s neck, and Luke smiles and rests his mouth against Michael’s forehead.  
  
“I love you the most,” he whispers.  
  
“I know,” Michael whispers back.  
  
Maybe it will take a while for Michael to change the way he feels, to learn how to love himself a little more, but right now he’s wrapped up by three people who love him enough to make up the difference, so Luke knows he’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) (and tell me if you do so I know who you are!)


End file.
